DONATIONS:THE GREEN Party has claimed Fine Gael has "questions to answer" about the source of its political funding.
The party yesterday challenged Fine Gael to publish full accounts and to explain what Green Party TD Trevor Sargent termed the “large gap” in credibility between what the party has declared in donations and the funds it has available to fight the election.
Mr Sargent said Fine Gael has not made any public declarations of donations in almost a decade:
“So – where’s the money? Where did all the cash that’s being splashed about on this election come from? If the parties can’t be straight with you about that, how can you trust them on other issues?”
By not publishing accounts, he claimed Fine Gael was feeding cynicism in politics.
In an attack on Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, who is from Co Mayo, Mr Sargent claimed “the Galway tent has been replaced by the Castlebar campsite” and there was no shortage of corporate donations flowing to the larger parties.
Mr Sargent also claimed many union members were “sickened” by their organisations’ financial support for Labour.
The Greens yesterday published their proposals to make political funding more transparent. Mr Sargent said the party was alone in seeking a ban on corporate donations, the mandatory publication of political party accounts and a lowering of the threshold for declaring political donations from the current level of €5,078.95.
The most recent figures from the Standards in Public Office Commission show that neither Fine Gael nor Labour declared any donations for 2009, while Fianna Fáil declared €11,800 and the Greens over €46,000.
Fine Gael told The Irish Timeslast month it had €2.25 million to fight the election, but said most of this came from a draw supported by members and very little came from the corporate sector.
Green Party leader John Gormley defended his party’s failure to introduce a ban on corporate donations while in Government. He said the heads of a Bill on the issue had been drawn up but the party had had to leave Government before it was enacted.
He said the Greens didn’t think it was appropriate for a political party to be taking huge amounts of money from “vested interests” because these interests would then have a say in dictating policy.
Mr Gormley also rejected Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams’s claims about widespread corruption in politics. He said it was unhelpful to throw out allegations of corruption. The Greens were not part of any political elite and had less money than Sinn Féin.
